The search performance report in Google Search Console had a data logging issue on September 21, 2022. This caused some data to not be presented in the search performance report on that date, potentially making it appear that you had fewer visitors from Google Search on that day.
Google said it is working on replacing most of the data in the near future. If you did any reporting for clients or you plan to do reporting for clients in the near future, you should communicate this data anomaly in those reports.
The issue. Google wrote here, “Due to a logging error, sites may see a small drop in data for this day. This is a logging issue only; it does not reflect changes in search performance or user behavior. We hope to replace most of the missing data soon.”
This was on September 21st for the Search performance report.
What it looks like. Google has now annotated the report so you can clearly see which date is affected:
Fix coming soon. Google said it will fix or replace most of the missing data soon. It is unclear if the fix will be actual data or similar data from previous day averages.
Why we care. If you have provided reporting to clients or management, you may want to update them that the September 21st data in Search Console may be wrong. If you will soon be providing reporting to clients or management, you may want to annotate your reports with this note.
Make sure to check back later to see if the data was restored and if you need to send revised reports to clients or management.
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About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.